In June, at IEFP, took place the National Strategy presentation for young people, who are currently unemployed, not studying or not attending vocational training (NEET).
According to the statements of the Vice-President of the IEFP, the strategy is to achieve 30,000 young people of 67,500 total who are not employed, studying or having specialized training. This session was attended by the Secretary of State for Employment, the Secretary of State of Youth and Sport and the representative of the ILO (International Labor Organization), Gianni Roses.
In a context of international crisis, in which a large number of young people who were neither working or attending education or training programmes, the Council of the European Union recommended to the Member States that a “Youth Guarantee” be created.
According to the IEFP, integrated into the European initiative ‘ Make The Future, Today’, several actions will be promoted until June 2018, with the aim of speeding up the access of job opportunities to young people between 15 and 28 years.
The Youth Guarantee is an implementation of the European initiative and was created with the same goal – by providing an opportunity, these target group will improve their skills within four months after initiating the program by registering on the site or on their partners and allow them to get in touch with the labor market.
Portugal decided to extend the age range up to the age of 29, because, its youth unemployment rate is above the EU average.
The Youth Guarantee intends to act actively in different areas, such as:
- Employment – by helping NEET people to find jobs in Portugal or abroad and give them the support and the incentives to create their own employment or company;
- Attending education – by helping to complete their school journey through professional courses with a great practical component;
- Training programmes – by finding the right training for them, from school equivalency courses to short courses that allow them to acquire or increase skills such as computing or foreign languages and
- Providing internships: they can carry out a paid internship that allows them to acquire fundamental skills for the job market.
Through this Young Guarantee initiative, the IEFP, proposed to expand the network of partners (about 1500 throughout the continental territory, including local authorities, youth associations and private social solidarity institutions), which, on the field, make an important contribution by flagging and listen these young people which are less integrated in the system.
According to the latest data from the INE (statistics of Portugal ) in the 1st quarter of 2017, there are 175.900 young people up to 30 years who live in this situation.
Of these, 108,300 are unemployed, although they actively try to search for a job.
On the other hand, 67.500 don’t seek to find an occupation.
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